Huawei has been met with bad reception in the United States, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) are now issuing an advisory to the American citizens to refrain from using any phone by Chinese manufacturer Huawei.
Products of the Huawei brand have been found to be a potential security threat to the United States and the American customers. The three intelligence and security agencies have testified in court that Huawei is not good for the protection and safety of U.S. users.
It is also worth noting that Huawei is one of the biggest competitors of Apple in the smartphone market of the United States. Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked the agencies whether they would recommend that the American people use Huawei products, and none of them did.
Meanwhile, FBI Director Chris Wray explained that their verdict on Huawei phones stemmed from the fact that it is a foreign company and is a global leader in telecommunications and networking equipment. Letting something like that inside the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure is apparently detrimental to the country's security. It can be recalled that they have even previously blocked off attempts of Huawei to sell and provide equipment to federal agencies.
More so, being in debt to a foreign company for equipment is quite a risk for them as well. Wray further reasoned that "It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information and it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage." Huawei, on the other hand, has not made much financial progress in the U.S. market since its government is highly suspicious that the smartphones and other devices can be used for foreign surveillance.
This was not the first time Huawei has experience intense vigilance from the U.S. government to ban the brand from the region. In 2012, the electronics manufacturer was one of the two Chinese companies that were blacklisted by the U.S. congress. However, Huawei quickly disputed the action and called the suspicions baseless.
